


Days

by multiplefandomfan



Series: Days Gone By [1]
Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Arc Reactor Issues, Eating Disorder, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt/Comfort, Incest, PTSD, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape, Poor Tony, Potentially triggering, avengerkink prompt, hinted racial slurs, hinted self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 11:35:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4605216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/multiplefandomfan/pseuds/multiplefandomfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/20598.html?thread=50820214#t50820214<br/>Tony was both physically and sexually abused as a child by Howard. Even in his earliest memories, when he was around 2 or so, Howard's sexual abuse of him and lack of proper love and affection was a constant. His mother, Maria, pretended not to notice and just spent her days in a medicated haze. Obadiah later manipulated Tony when Tony went to MIT and convinced Tony that he was the only one that loved him, and if Tony loved him back, he should have sex with him. </p><p>I want an exploration of the effect that this background has on adult Tony, his coping mechanisms, and his relationships with others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Days

Some days are good. 

Some days he can walk with little difficulty. Talk ceaselessly without break. He can even gesticulate as wildly as he wishes with minimal (for him) amounts of pain. 

_Never completely free. Not after those days in a cave of pain, pain, pain._

_Never completely free of pain past those days._

Some days are a little bit less good. He limps as he walks, and the ever-present ache in his chest makes it hard to draw full breath. He starts easily, and is unable to talk to tall men with dark hair. It’s been noted that the amount he apologises rises drastically on those days.

Then there are days that are less than good. Days that are spent huddled up with arms cradling his chest in effort to contain his heart from exploding outwards. In order to ensure that his lungs can deflate enough to expel the air they struggled so hard to sucker in. 

Days that he struggles to speak. Days when his words are drowned out by the memories of a paternal voice shouting at him. Or words are forcibly hitched as it takes up more oxygen to articulate them than he is capable of drawing in at that moment.

Then there are the worst of days.

Days when he cannot move his body at all. It’s just not worth it. Every breath must be guarded. Delicate. Everything hurts. A stringent burning that makes every muscle ache with unwillful abandon. 

His chest. (Does that even need to be said?)

His shoulders. (so prone to dislocation because of his constant tugging at restraints. His shoulders aching always granted him such lovely flashbacks to being tied on his bed. Hands held securely above his head.)

His back. (muscles that would mysteriously spasm or twitch could be so annoying)

His pelvis. (CPP, or chronic pelvic pain, was what the doctors referred to it as. He just registered it as an unending ache.)

His stomach. (Research indicated that those who suffered from childhood sexual abuse were 1.7 times more likely to suffer from irritable bowel syndrome symptoms as those who weren’t. He just knows that there are days when he has to run for the restroom when he’s in no condition to be running anywhere).

His frame. (It’s just easier to not mention the multitude of aches that can assail him from previously broken bones on a skeleton that was too young to have finished forming correctly) 

His heart. (People had been astonished at how well he’d adapted to the constant chest pains gifted him by that which kept him alive. Little did they know that he’d had an unsatisfied, fluttery heart for years before hand.) 

His rectum. (No. Just no.)

 

Some days he dreams that things will be just fine.

Like that time he thought a red-headed somebody was going to be able to show him a new path, escort him down it hand in hand… maybe alter his life for the better through the steady waltz of love. 

Then his past overtook him once more, leaving him to struggle through panic attack after panic attack until his chest felt so heavy it was as though he were drowning under the slabs of concrete they’d tried so hard set in place for a life anew. 

Somehow, amazingly, she had not run from him. She instead held her arms out to him ever wider and enclosed him within them in a protective shield. His fiery-haired angel. 

He had tried to use the lessons he had been taught for her, had at first tried to show her his love by attempts at seduction over and over again. Each time, however? She rejected his advances.

Unlike those rejections that came before, they did not leave him feeling cold. Empty. Alone. They instead infused him with warmth because she cared enough to remain by him despite telling him no. Maybe she didn’t realise precisely why he felt he had to prove the fact that he loved her by having sex, but she knew enough to reject his advances. 

She’d probably pieced it together from things he screamed (whispered) during one attack or another. She now just smiled, rejected his words and embraced him. Shielded him. 

If she went home to her Happy boyfriend and talked to him about her guesses? Then that was fine. They never discuss it. 

He knows that reports indicate that those who suffered child abuse tended to be obese. Of course he chose the opposite. He struggled so much to eat at a regular intervals. Partially because food could offset his IBS, and partially because he struggled so much with appearing strong. 

Too many times had ‘my big, strong boy’ been panted into his ear. Injected into his brain.

Big. Strong.

Appealing.

Weak. Thin.

Better.

Don’t eat. Don’t eat. Don’t grow. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. 

Years passed before he could cope with being a normal size; his growth was permanently stunted. He’s short for life. 

_Short isn’t big and strong_

Some days he still struggles to eat, terrified that he will grow to be big and strong. He requires someone to help him on those days. Sit by him gently, help him prepare easy to digest foods (the higher level of anxiety upsets his stomach so badly).

A new red-haired angel has taken on that task. Her small, nimble fingers scittering along the chopping board as they dice meat to cook as easily as they wield a knife to defend. Attack. Avenge.

When he is capable of speech, he jokingly likens her dexterity to that of a spider’s legs; he knows the irony pleases her. 

What did he do before she knew him? Before she recognised his difficulties. 

There’s the blonde-haired soldier who used to terrify him so. This was the man who was everything he feared; of a military statuesque. So tall. So strong. He well remembered the days that ‘Steve. Steve’ were screamed into his ear whilst being punished for not being good enough. 

He remembered the day when a balding business partner explained to him about his father hurt him ( _so much pain_ ) because he wasn’t good enough to be loved. He wasn’t good like the blonde-haired soldier, was he? That business partner painstakingly explained precisely what it was he needed to do to become better. Yet… somehow… even with those explanations, he was never good enough. 

So he initially was terrified. Spat angry, angry sounding words to alleviate the terror. 

Thankfully… the soldier was as good and kind as he was reported to have been. He forgave the initial greeting, and persevered until a friendship was reached. Possibly he recognised the hitching in breath that indicated a lack of oxygen… who knew?

All he knew was that on those days when breathing was so very difficult, a soldier would be there to bolster his defences, sometimes going so far as to physically hold him upright to allow him to breathe better. 

Further. The scientist who challenged his brain and kept him distracted with oh-so-wonderful science. 

Who understands what it’s like to need to hide under the bed or in the cupboard.

The archer who will hide with him under said bed. 

The God who promises that those who hurt him so badly suffer in their afterlives. 

 

On those bad days, he wonders how he survived without his team. 

Without his two red-haired angels. 

Well. Before his team, there was his Knight. 

It feels like he’s always had his Knight. It’s almost a joke that he had to make his Knight an armour (though he did not make it overtly shiny) Just one of the many jokes that he shares with himself in the sanctity of his mind.

His Knight defended him when they were younger against the jackals who preyed around the vulnerable youth. Like sharks seeking out blood in the water, they recognised the scent of vulnerability and attempted to seek it out.

His Knight found him, and turned himself into some form of boulder that prevented this downward plummet. He in turn dragged him from the shadows and provided him with companionship of the like that he had never really known. 

In turn? He protected his Knight from racial slurs and attempts to derail his life goals. Two lonely souls met and clashed and formed a friendship that would last through the ages. 

A brotherhood, almost. Even if they came from vastly different backgrounds and certainly different parents. 

Although his Knight was not the right skin-colour of choice during those years, he still had the benefits of a supportive family. A father who did not love him too much, and a mother who did not turn aside. 

Without his Knight? He would neither be the man he is today, nor would he even be around today. 

How can this man call himself a superhero? You ask. 

This man who can go days on end without eating because he can’t stand the idea of putting anything inside him. This man who so abhors the idea of being strong (normal) that he purposefully weakens his own body through use of laxatives.

This man who has days that he can barely move due to the pain that assails him. That uses alcohol as a crutch to either poison or numb himself. 

This man who will not speak for fear of being heard. 

How dare this man who is so weak, so stupid… how _dare_ he call himself a superhero?

because 

Because…

Because………

Because! 

I am Ironman.


End file.
